Insights & Solutions

Lorenz, S. G. & Dreher, H. M. (2011). Hospital room design and health outcomes of the aging adult. Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 4(2), 23-35.

Healthcare is provided in a variety of settings, from a person’s home to outpatient clinics, to the hospital. While the settings and specific design elements may differ across the continuum of care, the objectives of safety, efficiency, satisfaction, and high quality care remain constant. This set of interactive diagrams provides a link between the evidence base, design strategies, and desired outcomes – in a visually intuitive and actionable format.

This Clinic Design Post Occupancy Evaluation Toolkit is self-administered and provides a way to collect a variety of data on the physical enviornment, subjective perception of users, and objective healthcare outcomes.

Learn about: the importance of social health for older adults, the definitions and characteristics of select social behavior concepts, and design implications of social concepts.

Learn about: definitions of psychological concepts related to the designed environment, functions of personalization, privacy, wayfinding, and access to nature in meeting psychological needs, and design implications of personalization, privacy, wayfinding, and access to nature.

Learn about: the frequency and cost of falls among older adults, reasons older people fall and what can be done to prevent falls, and other safety concerns among older adults.

Learn about: activities necessary for independent living, the range of residential options for older adults, and the culture change movement that is transforming care environments for the aging population.

As part of the noise toolbox, in this issue brief you will learn about how excessive noise can negatively impact patients and staff in the hospital environment, ways to improve patients’ perception of sound, and low-cost, medium-cost, and high-cost design strategies that can reduce noise.

Learn about: the ways older adults are categorized by demographers, U.S. population projections and trends, and the ways growth in the aging population could affect the healthcare design industry.

Learn about: cognitive changes that occur with normal aging, the definition and stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and design interventions that can reduce negative behaviors characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.